Better Auth Has Free Authentication for Any Framework — Here's Why It's Replacing NextAuth

NextAuth is great for Next.js. But what about Hono, SvelteKit, Nuxt, or Express? Better Auth works everywhere.

What is Better Auth?

Better Auth is a framework-agnostic authentication library for TypeScript. It supports email/password, OAuth, magic links, passkeys, 2FA, and more — with any framework and any database.

Quick Start

bun add better-auth

// auth.ts
import { betterAuth } from 'better-auth';
import { drizzleAdapter } from 'better-auth/adapters/drizzle';
import { db } from './db';

export const auth = betterAuth({
  database: drizzleAdapter(db, { provider: 'pg' }),
  emailAndPassword: { enabled: true },
  socialProviders: {
    google: {
      clientId: process.env.GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID!,
      clientSecret: process.env.GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET!,
    },
    github: {
      clientId: process.env.GITHUB_CLIENT_ID!,
      clientSecret: process.env.GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET!,
    },
  },
});

Client Setup

// auth-client.ts
import { createAuthClient } from 'better-auth/react'; // or /vue, /svelte, /solid

export const { signIn, signUp, signOut, useSession } = createAuthClient();

Email/Password Auth

function SignUpForm() {
  const handleSubmit = async (e: FormEvent) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    const formData = new FormData(e.target as HTMLFormElement);

    await signUp.email({
      email: formData.get('email') as string,
      password: formData.get('password') as string,
      name: formData.get('name') as string,
    });
  };

  return (
    <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
      <input name="name" placeholder="Name" required />
      <input name="email" type="email" placeholder="Email" required />
      <input name="password" type="password" placeholder="Password" required />
      <button type="submit">Sign Up</button>
    </form>
  );
}

Social Login

function LoginButtons() {
  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => signIn.social({ provider: 'google' })}>
        Continue with Google
      </button>
      <button onClick={() => signIn.social({ provider: 'github' })}>
        Continue with GitHub
      </button>
    </div>
  );
}

Session Management

function Dashboard() {
  const { data: session, isPending } = useSession();

  if (isPending) return <p>Loading...</p>;
  if (!session) return <p>Please sign in</p>;

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Welcome, {session.user.name}</h1>
      <p>{session.user.email}</p>
      <button onClick={() => signOut()}>Sign Out</button>
    </div>
  );
}

Two-Factor Authentication

import { twoFactor } from 'better-auth/plugins';

export const auth = betterAuth({
  plugins: [
    twoFactor({
      issuer: 'MyApp',
    }),
  ],
});

Better Auth vs NextAuth vs Lucia Auth vs Clerk

Feature	Better Auth	NextAuth	Lucia Auth	Clerk
Framework	Any	Next.js	Any	Any
Database	Any (adapter)	Any (adapter)	Any	Managed
Self-hosted	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Social OAuth	Yes	Yes	Manual	Yes
2FA	Plugin	No	Manual	Yes
Passkeys	Plugin	No	No	Yes
TypeScript	Full	Good	Full	Good
Free	Yes	Yes	Yes	Freemium

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